


Be Transformed by the Renewing of Your Mind

by MadImagination



Category: The Old Guard (Movie 2020)
Genre: Catholicism, Fate & Destiny, Historical Accuracy, M/M, Religion, Religious Discussion, a BIG attempt at, because that is what I am and so I feel some degree of ready to write about it, but idk man idk, specifically
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-08-09
Updated: 2021-01-16
Packaged: 2021-03-06 04:27:01
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 11,948
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25797382
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MadImagination/pseuds/MadImagination
Summary: Nicoló di Genova and his relationship with destiny, fate, pre-determination, what-have-you, over the course of a millennium.God was with him. Of that Nicoló had been sure of all his life. Why would now be different? He thought of his piety and the training he had tried to escape his entire life but had never been able, the training that he excelled at despite it all, and realized that this must have been His plan all along. These two disparate parts of himself that he always felt were in conflict found genesis here and now. And if this was God’s plan, if this was his divine mandate and Nicoló’s destiny, then who was Nicoló to question or doubt it?
Relationships: Andy | Andromache of Scythia & Nile Freeman & Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani & Nicky | Nicolò di Genova, Andy | Andromache of Scythia/Quynh | Noriko, Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani & Nicky | Nicolo di Genova, Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani/Nicky | Nicolò di Genova
Comments: 15
Kudos: 44





	1. Faith

**Author's Note:**

> Title is from Romans 12:2: "Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will."
> 
> Hey! So a few disclaimers! I do ID as Catholic but I am quite an unorthodox one, so I can't really claim to have nailed 11th century Catholic beliefs, structure, etc. This goes so so so much more for the aspects of Islam that I will touch on more in later chapters. I have grown up around a lot of Muslim people and have learned quite a bit through osmosis but I would never ever claim to be an expert so please comment if you think I fucked something up!  
> Also: The Crusades were fucking horrible and monstrous. I do not want to brush over that at all, especially not as a white Catholic. So Nicky will think/believe some shit stuff and he will HAVE to grow before he is worthy of Yusuf at all. I have tried to make Nicky's horrible thoughts obviously bad but not make them like...grossly written? Like when straight writers seem to take joy in writing violently homophobic characters? I would really appreciate any criticism if I screw that up at all!  
> And then a final note on Historical Accuracy! I tried lol. I wrote this chapter like two weeks ago but spent so long doing research to make sure I felt confident writing like one line so I have now decided fuck it! I am posting this! But I do still want to try to make this make sense historically, if only to make sure my white Catholic bias doesn't presume racist Islamophobic shit, so if anything is glaring wrong, please check me! Thank you!!

God was with him. Of that Nicoló had been sure of all his life. His light and love was eternal and beautiful. Nicoló didn’t know how anyone could look out at the endless blue sea or the green hills of Genova with its strong homes and walls creating a haven of culture amidst it all, and _not_ believe in His grace.

His mother’s brother was a priest and he had known since he was a young child that he would follow him and devout himself fully to guiding others into the light of God.

His father wanted him to follow _his_ brother and become a knight or fight in the Genovese navy. What Nicoló wanted mattered much less, at least during his childhood, so he was given as much training as his father could get him in the art of war. And as a well-off noble merchant, he could get him quite a lot. 

One night after such training, his harsh tutor leaving him bruised and bleeding slightly in the courtyard, Leo, his older brother, had found him alone.

“You are so fortunate, Nicoló,” the boy of thirteen years had sighed. “No one takes it easy on you. Master Donizo never really pushes me.” Nicoló was only ten years old at the time but he knew very well why his older, legitimate, brother got treated carefully and taught the art of war as an _art_ instead of the brutal thing of survival Nicoló got. 

“You are already good, Leo,” Nicoló said, appeasing. “I need the extra training.” Leo puffed out his chest and grinned. He knew well how to play into the egos of man, and boy. The last thing he needed when his entire body ached with bone deep bruises and all he wanted was to go home to his mother, was to be held up by his brother’s desire to be treated like an expendable bastard.

“I am, aren’t I?” He looked out into the distance, picturing himself as the great and marvelous knight he clearly wished to be, before remembering his brother’s presence. “I am sure you will be good as well, Nicoló, one day.” Nicoló nodded and thanked him for his kind words, before finally slipping out of his father’s home. 

His mother’s home was smaller, of course, but so much better. His little sister, Francesa, was in constant movement and the sounds of her hurried footsteps and frenetic fumbling always filled the home, creating a harmony with his mother’s humming and the sounds of her handiwork and cooking.

The look on his mother’s face, still so _young_ , though she seemed infinitely old to him at the time, when he came home from his training was full of so much guilt and helplessness. But he found peace in her home and her lap so that always seemed unnecessary to him. And as she would tell him the stories of God’s creation of the world or Queen Esther saving her people as he went to bed tucked against her warmth with his sister on her other side and listening to the soft sounds of the sea waves breaking, he remembered all the good in the world and while he didn’t _want_ to fight, he knew why his father thought it was good to fight for the world. Their world. It was a beautiful thing. 

Nicoló didn’t know how much of his determination towards religious devotion throughout his youth, in spite of everything his father wanted for him, was because of his own sheer force of will, rather than his mother’s kind and eternal support. But he was still only given physical training until he was nineteen and his mother gave birth to his brother. Little Matteo. His curls were a gold sheened brown and he smiled much earlier than normal, according to the midwife. Nicoló thought he would never forget the soft and bright delight he felt holding the tiny, delicate little boy that first time.

His mother came to him, still soft from carrying Matteo, and told him his father was granting him permission to seriously pursue his seminary education, though he was expected to keep up with his training as well. Just in case. Nicoló had cradled his mother in his arms, as he was much taller than her by that point, and the few tears of joy that slipped from his eyes fell into her hair, just starting to gray.

The Cathedral of Genova was gorgeous and a sanctuary to Nicoló and so many more. The warmth and welcome within it felt like a natural extension of the comfort of the small bedroom in his mother’s home. The purest form of Holy Nicoló had experienced.

His study there, under the priests and deacons at the Cathedral, was blessed. Spending his days praising God and discussing in great depth and length his readings of the Bible and others. He didn’t always agree with other’s thoughts, but everyone in the Cathedral was as dedicated to Him as Nicoló, if not more. And so it didn’t feel important. He helped the clergy give food to the homeless and listened as they provided counsel to those in need. All of this was interspersed, of course, with the necessary training. But that was his cross to bear to get the gift of his position in the church. It was more than worth it.

He became a Deacon and he didn’t cry. His mother did, though. So did Francesa and little Matteo, though Nicoló didn’t think he fully understood why. His training lessened but didn’t _stop_ , despite what the priests made clear they thought of that. Nicoló’s father was important enough, though, that it didn’t matter. His father still clung to the hope of Nicoló being some great knight of Genova to bring glory and honour to their home and family. Nicoló thought he could do that better as a priest. Leo didn’t talk to him anymore, so uncomprehending of his desire to work in the parish. When Nicoló let himself think uncharitably, so only really when he talked with Francesa, who was loud and bold in a way that their mother could never understand and that made her and Nicoló worried about her safety, he felt that Leo and their father’s lack of understanding in his desire was built less out of their desire for glory and more out of their inability to empathize with those in need in Genova, who the priests and deacons of the Cathedral of Genova cared for more than the merchants and nobles. Even his family would be forgotten by the generosity of the rich that had given him life and had been forced to turn to the kindness of the church many times before. 

Francesa said that wasn’t uncharitable and Jesus would have agreed entirely. 

“It is easier for a camel--!” she would start, always. Sometimes he thought it was dangerous that he had ever taught her to learn to read. But surely more people reading the holy text could only be good, even if more people included his sister.

“You know very well Jesus then says all is possible with God. Even a camel passing through the eye of a needle,” he would sigh. He tried so hard not to smile when saying this. Francesa needed no encouragement.

“It is still easier,” she would mutter. 

Nicoló held out hope, though, that his training would come to an end when he finally became a priest.

He got so, so close. And while the heartbreak he felt when his father came to him in the year of our Lord 1099 paled in comparison to the pure joy that what followed brought him, it still hurt.

The Crusade had been in process for almost three years at that point. Nicoló was grateful for the Crusaders and their efforts to take back the Holy Land. He had prayed for their safe passage and given many of the Crusaders from Genova blessings as they left. He had not wanted to join them, though. Their mandate was of course a divine one, but he did not think it was _his_. He had managed to weasel his way out of serving in it despite his father’s desire. He had specific responsibilities in an upcoming wedding of the daughter of another noble in Genova even more powerful than Nicoló’s father. In that one moment, Nicoló was more useful to his father in his clerical role, sparing Nicoló. God agreed that the Crusade was not Nicoló’s divine calling.

But a second contingent of Crusaders from Genova was called for, and his father called on Nicoló again. There was no politically important ceremony to save him then, and Nicoló was given a knighthood as a Crusader and a promise that he would be made a full priest as soon as he returned.

“As if you will return!” Francesa raged when he told her and their mother. He sat at the small table in the main room, the table he and Francesa had fixed uncountable times, head in his hands. He wasn’t avoiding Francesa’s eyes, rather he was trying not to see the sword his father had shoved into his hands mere hours before that was now lashed around his waist. “Your skills will mean nothing when you are shoved into the frontline of a war against endless armies who will cut you down with not a single regret! You are just a human shield for those _pious_ \--” she said that like it was a curse word and Nicoló barely kept from flinching, “--few who will send you to die in a foreign land for no reason!”

“It is the Holy Land, Francesa,” Nicoló tried, shaking his head. “It has to be freed from the rule of the Muslims. I know you do not wish me to go and fight there, but it is still a holy mandate.” Francesa scoffed.

“Is your worship of Him, or _anyone_ ’s truly hindered by the Arabs holding this land you have never known or been to? Enough to justify your death, Nicoló?” She was shouting. Loud enough the neighbors could hear, which could be bad but Nicoló didn’t know what to say to calm her.

“Francesa.” Their mother’s voice was sharper and louder than Nicoló could ever remember it being and his gaze snapped up to look at her.She didn’t look angry, she just looked tired. Yet she gave him a small, fragile, smile as he looked at her. “If the Crusade is the path Nicoló is to be on, then that is His plan and it is not our place to question it.” She raised a hand to cup his cheek and he tried to pretend he didn’t see the wetness in her eyes and the matching tears that finally fell down Francesa’s cheeks. “I am sure that He knows your devotion and will reward it in the Holy Land. You will not die there. You will come home, He will make sure of it.”

The goodbyes to his family and fellow clergy that followed were blurry as he couldn’t seem to focus on anything in anticipation of the war he was heading into. But as he watched the port of Genova disappear from the deck of one of the ships, he thought of what his mother had said.

God was with him. Of that Nicoló had been sure of all his life. Why would now be different? When he was being sent on a divine mission to the Holy Land as ordered by Pope Urban II himself? He thought of his piety and the training he had tried to escape his entire life but had never been able, the training that he excelled at despite it all, and realized that this must have been His plan all along. These two disparate parts of himself that he always felt were in conflict found genesis here and now. Nicoló had made himself the perfect Crusader, beyond what his father had even intended, through his own devotion. And if this was God’s plan, if this was his divine mandate and Nicoló’s destiny, then who was Nicoló to question or doubt it?

Queen Esther had not wanted to be the one to save her people, but once God had put her in the position to, she knew that it was her destiny; her duty. To God and His people.

As the sun set and the deck of the ship grew dark and the wind bitingly cold, Nicoló knelt to pray in thanks to the Lord for creating him for a role in His holy reclamation of Jerusalem. And if he also prayed in askance that his destiny include his survival, his return to his mother and Francesa and little Matteo then that was between him and God. 


	2. Conviction

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It was the night of the thirteenth of June, when Nicoló realized he had never truly seen combat. Years and years of training and a tutor beating him up on a regular basis were completely incomparable. No training can prepare you for bloodshed like that.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yusuf!!!!!!!! Is!!!!!! Here!!!!!!!!!!! He doesn't say anything yet but man do I love him. I'm going to be real: the reason I am writing Old Guard fanfiction in Nicky's POV is because I want to just write very kind, in-love words about Joe. I love Nicky and all but I wouldn't be able to wax poetic about him enough to write Joe's POV accurately. Waxing poetic about Yusuf? That I can do.  
> Important Note!: I do not use “Saracen” here even if it is a historically accurate because of the discussions about its use in fandom (see: [**Some Points**](https://archiveofourown.org/works/25598143) ). In this house we care way more about what actual real life people being affected by our words and choices think and feel than historical accuracy! This means that I use Arab and Muslim instead to describe the people the Crusaders want to hurt, which can still be quite horrible to read, though, so please be aware of that!  
> Also I really meant to post this like late last week but then I got a bad cold and was out of commission for like a week, so we are here now instead! But that means you hopefully won’t have to wait as long for the next chapter!

Some part of Nicoló thought coming to the Holy Land would feel like coming home. It was where the Crusaders and all Christens were _supposed_ to be. Jaffa, the city they landed in, was even a port city like Genova. But nothing about it felt familiar. Everything felt hotter, there was sand absolutely everywhere and the buildings were built entirely differently than anything back home, connected and layered with pale bricks almost the color of the sand. It was beautiful, undeniably. Nicoló could see, staring out into the expanse of desert outside of the city, how this was the Holy Land. But he didn’t feel settled like he thought he would, even if just because he had been on a ship for weeks and would finally be on solid ground again.

There was not much time to meditate on it though, because Nicoló was never alone and they quickly started moving, originally toward Ascalon but soon they redirected under threat of an Egyptian army towards the main camp of the Crusaders outside of Jerusalem. The Genovese contingent that Nicoló had come with had also brought with them the makings of war machines Nicoló had no real comprehension of, and engineers to head their construction. Nicoló and every other Crusader he met were roped into helping put them together. This was where he met most of those he had been grouped with for the assault on the walls of Jerusalem. He was Genovese and good with a bow, but he was not a Genovese bowman, he had been trained as a Knight and so he had been separated from most of his fellow Crusaders from Genova and loaned out for the frontal assault. His new commander was Raymond of Saint-Gilles, a french Count, who was by all accounts a deeply devoted man, which made him a better commander in Nicoló’s eyes than the Genovese commander Nicoló had come with, Guglielmo Embriaco, “William the Drunkard”, and many of the other leaders of this Crusade whose interest in the Crusade seemed glory or money based.

This was reflected in the people he met among the normal Crusaders as well. Many of them, especially Raymond’s men, were French and thus Nicoló did not always understand them nor was understood by them, but he learned anyway. There were various fellow clergy throughout, some serving just in the clerical roles and others like Nicoló who had fighting abilities and were roped into being a part of the siege force. With them, Nicoló found himself involved in many discussions of the pilgrims, both present and those expected to come later, who the clergy were excited to bring to the Holy Land. Nicoló didn’t find he had much to add, but it was nice to be reminded of the bright future and why they were fighting here in these foreign lands. The rest of the ranks were filled with non-clergy devouts, who wouldn’t stop talking about God in a way even Nicoló found annoying, and the almost mercenary ones who boasted about the champions welcome they would receive upon their return home, complete with women and wine, or about the gold and wealth they would take from the Arabs. Nicoló thought it was in poor taste. Others still, quietly admitted they were here because of the plenary indulgence the Pope had decreed for anyone who died in the Crusade. Nicoló could understand that desire. And at least this way, people that so craved His forgiveness could be utilized for the betterment of all Christendom.

The worst part of the encampment, though, was just watching people die. Nicoló had come to the Holy Land expecting righteous violence and bloodshed. He had not expected that so many around him would be perishing so passively. The waters around them had been poisoned by the Fatimid governor of Jerusalem, all except the pool of Siloam near the walls of the city, which meant anyone who approached to collect water for the Crusaders were fired upon viciously. So everyone was in desperate need of water, and it felt like no one was getting any at all. Nicoló had been suffering the deprivation far less time than most of the other people in their camps, but his head was still constantly splitting and his limbs weak. Everyday Nicoló saw at least five people collapse only to be ignored by everyone else around them. What could they do? Sometimes a priest would come and perform Last Rites on the fallen, Nicoló himself even helped once. The man that had dropped, who, while certainly doomed, had not died, croaked his alarmed rejection of the ritual, determined he would yet live. Nicoló had stayed by him until his protests stopped and when, eventually, inevitably, he stopped breathing altogether. He stayed by him after as well. 

It was the night of the thirteenth of June, when Nicoló realized he had never truly seen combat. Years and years of training and a tutor beating him up on a regular basis were completely incomparable. No training can prepare you for bloodshed like that. They had just managed to fill in the moat after hours of effort, under fire from slings of arrows. Pierre, a young man who had whispered quietly in camp two nights previous that he just wanted to be forgiven for his sins, fell with an arrow right through his throat. Nicoló had dropped to the ground beside him and performed Last Rites as the boy tried to breath but only blood came from his mouth. He wanted to think that even if he wasn’t a priest yet and he already had the plenary indulgences, having a deacon perform the boy’s last sacrament would make some small difference.

Nicoló was ashamed to see that what finally got the army motivated enough to fill the moat after so many died was when Raymond announced he would pay one denarius to every man who would add three large stones to the moat. He still collected his own coin, though. But, the fight only got worse when they finally crossed the stone filled moat. The onslaught from those atop the walls slowed and became more focused on the siege towers alone. Arrows were no longer being slung at them, but massive boulders that missed the siege tower or only minorly damaged it crashed into the crowds around it, those pushing it and those defending it. Nicoló saw countless fellow Crusaders crushed beneath their weight, screaming in agony as most were not outright killed by the stones. Nicoló saw someone kneel down beside one of those men, his entire lower body and much of his torso mangled under a boulder and his blood leaking out into the sand. Renaud, Nicoló thought his name was. He thought they were going to perform Last Rites, but instead their longsword came down and through the throat of the man, putting him out of his misery. Nicoló wasn’t sure how he kept going, how he avoided death, how he didn’t just collapse from the amount of death that surrounded him.

But somehow Nicoló found himself and the siege tower pushed up against the wall, and a cry rang out among those still alive as they charged in and up the tower. Nicoló knew the wooden structure was sturdy, he had just seen it survive the onslaught of catapulted rocks. But it didn’t feel particularly strong as Nicoló and his fellow Crusaders stormed up the flights of stairs. The thunder of their footfalls shaking the entire thing and the fierce war cries of the Crusaders that felt like a fire roaring around him made Nicoló light headed. It felt almost like when he knelt at the altar of the Cathedral of Genova, lungs full of incense and heart full of prayer, and he knew that he was on the precipice of _something_. He hoped it was good, because he was sure there was no way for him to stop himself from going over that edge. 

Nicoló was among the first people into the tower, and thus in the first wave of Crusaders onto the top of the wall. The sudden success of the siege tower had brought waves of energy to the exhausted Crusaders and this new vigour carried them well, but there were Muslim fighters ready on the wall and they came at them with a ferocity that scared Nicoló. The Arab archers had brought so much destruction, but these swordsmen seemed even more capable. They were determined and vicious, quick and fluid, moving in ways Nicoló had never been trained to combat. The Arabs weren’t exhausted from the sun and thirst, so Nicoló wasn’t even sure if his perception of their terrifying aptitude was based in reality or fatigue. It didn’t matter he supposed. They were far better than the Crusader knights, whether through skill and training or just health. 

Bloody sand clung to his skin, slipping under his armour and chainmail, tearing into his flesh. The feeling of his sword cutting all the way through meat and bone shook him to his core, but there was no time to reckon with it. Any pause or hesitation would get him struck down immediately. Nicoló thought he was a good warrior, all considered, but he wasn’t sure he was killing any of the Arab fighters. Once he injured one enough that they fell, he couldn't afford to think about them anymore, not even for the single second it would take to make sure they were dead and not just hurt. Their bodies on the ground making the terrain of the fight slicker and more uneven; just another element of the battle trying to push Nicoló toward death. Another Muslim wielding a curved blade would take the fallens place so quickly, Nicoló didn’t even have time to think about his actions, just _hack stab hack stab_. He couldn’t be sure, but he thought he had been slashed a few times by Muslims before he felled them. Blood slicked his armour and clothes and while he was sure most of it was his enemies, he had no way to know just how much. It was distraction from what he thought was a new trickle of blood on his right shoulder, distraction he knew he couldn’t afford, distraction that lasted only for a split second, that kept him from anticipating the attack. Though later experience would reassure him that he wouldn’t have been able to stop it even if he saw it coming.

A harsh swipe knocked Nicoló’s feet out from under him, crashing him to the ground among the bodies of dead Arabs and Crusaders alike. He was soaked in

blood and guts in a moment. He was still reorienting when a weight landed on his chest, knocking out any breath he had kept in the fall. Nicoló looked up to see a Muslim fighter straddling him. Thankfully, the other man seemed to be previously injured, his blood spilling out over Nicoló’s chest. This gave Nicoló just enough time to take a breath and take his sword back up, before the other man swung his down at Nicoló, a furious cry escaping his lips. Nicoló barely blocked it, his sword knocking the Arab’s away, so it swung into the ground to Nicoló’s left, though he thought it might have cut his shoulder too. The Arab didn’t stop, pulling back to bring his curved blade down again. Nicoló moved to counter this too, but he was violently reminded of his new position on the ground when another Crusader took a step back and swung their heel into Nicoló’s skull. His head was knocked violently to the side, ringing like the church bell in the Cathedral of Genova and he was thoroughly distracted. In the blurry corner of his vision, he saw the Arab strike down, trying to take advantage of Nicoló’s disorientation, just barely in time to move his blade. Still not fast enough to parry it, though, instead just piercing the length of metal through the Arab’s chest. He thought he could feel the scrapping of the man’s bones against his sword, shaking along the weapon to Nicoló’s core. But, more likely, that was the curved blade of the Arab that slipped under the collar of his chain mail and punctured his breast, before retreating again, so quickly. His eyes widened and his breath caught, wet and painful. Above him, the Arab man’s eyes mirrored his, large and desperate. In that moment Nicoló knew they were both searching for the same thing, some absolution or meaning. This Muslim might have been hoping for a different, wrong, divinity to speak to him in his moment of death, but Nicoló knew they both just wanted a sign that their deaths had purpose. It was a moment of understanding that made his last moment one of the beginnings of doubt.

His sword, already bloodied and dull, goring through the skin and muscle and guts of the man, piercing back out again through his back. The slow, painful death Nicoló’s hands had sentenced him to, slumped over Nicoló’s corpse. His forehead touched Nicoló’s bloody chest. The Arab man’s face, dark and bearded, grim but determined. Beautiful in its conviction. His eyes were darker than any in Nicoló’s family, but the lines that surrounded them were the same lines of laughter that his mother had and Nicoló always wished for. It was not the face of a fighter. He had no idea what else an Arab, a Muslim, could be, though. The grim face of another man, encouraging the Arab Nicoló killed. Nicoló could see his group in the distance, camped outside the wall. A colorful, carefully crafted, rug on which the man bowed. His forehead touched the ground. 

A woman with long dark hair, surrounded by unfamiliar trees. Tall. No, small. No. Two women with long dark hair. Traveling together through the trees. Armed, one with a double edged axe and the other with a quiver and bow, different from the kind Nicoló was used to in Genova, but which he could still tell was well made. The smaller one, the one with the bow, danced around the obstacles of the environment as though they were not even there, a smile on her face. Her features were not entirely unfamiliar to Nicoló, he had seen a few people looking similarly come through Genova, but he knew they were from very far away. Though maybe less far now that he had made the long trek to the Holy Land. The humor in her eyes was unmistakable, the genuineness of her joy, in a hike through dangerous terrain with only another woman accompanying her. The taller woman led the way through the trees and moved with full knowledge of the presence of the obstacles, but also complete confidence that they would not hinder her. And they did not, bowing and breaking under her strength and surety. Just seeing her, Nicoló understood. Felt he would too. Everything about this woman screamed of a threat to Nicoló, but the fierceness in her eyes reminded him of Francesa, his sister, and he couldn’t help but find himself feeling fondly towards this strange woman. The tall woman glanced back to the shorter, and the danger was forgotten and all Nicoló could see was the love this woman held. Such depth of feeling Nicoló thought he would drown. Then the land was dark, and the two women lay beside each other, falling into sleep ready and wary, but comfortable in a way Nicoló had never even dreamed of. 

The visions moved faster suddenly, shorter, with even less context.

The Arab man’s face; the curl of the edge of his lips as he smiled; him falling to the ground before he brought Nicoló down with him; water falling over his bare brown shoulders. The smaller woman’s hand wringing a pendant; the such total stillness of her shoulders that felt more vigilant than casual; a drop of sweat on her neck quickly absorbed by her collar. The woman built of danger sharpening her double sided axe; the flex of her hand toward the smaller woman as she took a curious step away from her; the vein in her neck thudding with her pulse, strong, rhythmic. Nicoló’s beat in time.

Nicoló’s beat in time. He was dead. But his heart beat. His lungs felt empty. He gasped. Nicoló’s eyes shot open. He was alive.

Nicoló was laying face down on the sand, now with a lungful of it. Quickly he turned and sat up, coughing. The sun was just coming up, the edges of the sky a burnt orange. The wall of Jerusalem they had spent so long fighting to scale, now towered above him once more. Beside him, and partly on top of him, lay the bodies of the men he had charged the wall with, he assumed since he couldn’t make out all of their faces in the blood and gore, and the burnt remains of the siege tower he had climbed what felt like only moments before. They had lost. Not forever, he could see most of Raymonds men camped out a distance away from him and the wall. But Nicoló just sat and stared for many moments. Slowly, he brought a hand to his neck. His clothing was heavy, tacky and stained red, but as he slipped a hand under it, probing at the skin still wet with blood, he felt no pain and found no wound.

Jesus had said “whoever lives by believing in me will never die” but Nicoló did not imagine that was so literal. He could hardly be the only true believer, even the Blessed Virgin had died eventually. He looked toward the sun and the increasing colors on the horizon. The empty tomb where Jesus was resurrected was just through these walls, that holy site and where he had been crucified, a reason this land and city were Holy. The reason Nicoló, and so many others, had come here. He was whole, after being thoroughly killed. Resurrected. Not as Jesus had been, that would be blasphemous to even think, but through his grace. It had to have been. As Nicoló died he wished for some sign in his last moments that he had truly followed God’s path. He did not get it, as he had instead been spared his last moments entirely.

His palm stayed on his chest, feeling the thumping of his own heart, covered in his own blood that had come from an impossibly vanished wound. It was a holy feeling, though different than Nicoló had ever experienced holy before. This was no warmth of his bed or the lilt of his mother’s voice or light shining through a window in the Cathedral. This was visceral, miraculous. This was destiny, and it demanded action.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter truly made me realize I have no idea when to capitalize things and when not, so if you noticed I fucked that up at all this chapter please, please help a girl out and tell me. (mainly crusader. I’m pretty sure I’ve seen it capitalized but that doesn’t totally feel right when I’m writing? idk)  
> Also Historical Note: the successful seizure of Jerusalem was on the 15th of July but this assault by Raymond (as part of the beginning of the final assault) is disputed to have started on the 14th or the 13th in the sources I found, so I chose to have it start on the 13th to make the timeline of their first meeting a little longer and because that timeline makes sense to me. Also I really wanted for them to have at least a little time to know they came back to life without knowing the other did too.  
> Thank you!


	3. Doubt

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Nicoló’s pure and whole-hearted conviction that his life had been divinely touched lasted less than a day.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hahaha okay I have learned my lesson about setting any expectations of when the next bit will be out! Whoops! To make up for it this chapter alone has doubled the length of this work lol. this chapter kinda got away from me and way more happened in it than I planned, but thats how it be sometimes.
> 
> This chapter covers the actual seizure of Jerusalem and is as a result quite fucking horrible and I spent a lot of time on that because I wanted to appropriately communicate the atrocities of the Crusade. So big content warning/trigger warning for violence, murder, all that bloody bad shit.

Nicoló couldn’t engage with the other Crusaders around him when he returned to camp. Too much of his mind was preoccupied with his recent death and survival. It wasn’t hard though, since most of the people he had talked to in camp had been with him in the charge on the wall and were almost certainly dead. Like he should have been.

He sat alone at the edge of the village of tents as they regrouped in the morning light. Further poking at his skin and wiping away of blood and dirt revealed that not only was the killing blow in his sternum healed, but so was everything. The scratches from the sand digging into his skin; the knicks he had gotten from his own sword and from the blades of all the other combatants; the bruises he should surely have sustained from being dumped over the walls of Jerusalem. All gone.

Maybe that was what made him feel almost impermanent, unreal. Everything was moving around him but he was truly apart. He  _ knew  _ he had divine purpose now, but it did not comfort him in this frozen moment of estrangement.

He tried to think about the visions he saw after he died, hoping to find some guidance from God or an angel. He could make no sense of them though and decided to brush it off as a just a consequence of pain and damage and not a part of divine intervention.

When people began to organize for another assault on the wall, Nicoló found himself pressed in with them. He had no guidance from the divine besides his resurrection, but he felt certain that some purpose, some reason, for his return could be found behind those walls, so he joined the march with determination and passion he did not think he mustered the previous time. It did not last as long as he expected. All the divine purpose did not make the horrific loss around him any less devastating to watch. Some around him seemed numb to it, but despite having been on the gory side of the trauma he saw, he couldn’t find it in himself to be unaffected.

It might have made it worse. Every time someone nearby fell and did not rise again, Nicoló found himself questioning  _ why me _ ? The cardinal would say ‘ _ Question not the will of God, Nico.’ _ But that felt impossible, confronted as he was with the arbitrary-seeming miracle he was given. And confronted, he was.

Nicoló was not spared the violence that felled those around him, and he found himself slashed, beaten, and bleeding more than surely anyone had ever been before. He had blacked out only to come to moments later many times, some certainly because he had died once again. It was clear to him, however, that he was getting better at the callous and unforgiving kind of fighting war necessitated. No one else on this battlefield but him had room to make errors and learn from them. Any mistake near guaranteed fatality on the blood-soaked sand, but that no did not stop him. Slowly, excruciatingly slowly, he found himself improving. At least enough to prevent regular death, even if not enough to prevent regular injury.

He was somewhat annoyed, though he tried not to be, that all these wounds still hurt. They felt no lesser than they had before and he just had to keep going and be injured again because nothing stayed and took him out of commission. It was impossible to see because of all the blood covering him, but Nicoló could feel as the gashes shivered and closed the skin tight once more, just in time to be torn open yet again.

The unthinking, brutal, state he had been in when he had died the first time had found him once more despite all this, though, when he saw him.

Not far from him, another Crusader lunged forward and gored an Arab, pulling out his sword as the Arab stumbled forward, falling to his knees. But he only stayed there for a moment, rising to his feet swiftly and charging at the Crusader who had turned his back on him. The Crusader was dead in moments and the Arab stood strong and sturdy, as though no sword had ever touched his skin. And then Nicoló saw his face and knew for certain that was not true.  _ His _ sword had pierced this man.

Nicoló took a step back without thinking, thoroughly distracted from the person he was facing down at the moment. The only thing he was not surprised by in that moment was the enemy taking advantage of the distraction and striking him down.

The man was still there when Nicoló rose again.

Maybe he could just lay down again. There was no room in his head to think through what this meant. But his eyes caught on the man’s face and he found he could not look away. The curve of his lips, though grimacing, not smiling as it had been in the dream; the shape of his shoulders and the fluidity of them as he swung his sword; the lines around his eyes as they narrowed in determination. Tiny details that made up this man. Tiny details he had certainly not noticed before he had fallen that first time, but which had been selected and showcased to him in that vision. Accurately. He was distracted enough by this realisation that he was felled again.

He almost did not get back up again, almost kept his eyes shut tight, just because he wanted to never see that man ever again. But then someone kicked his side as they moved around him and he decided staying down was not a good idea either. He would just avoid him. He must be imagining him anyway. There were all sorts of horrific tales told around the camp and on the boat over, about what broke in some men's minds after seeing war. Startlingly detailed figments of the man who had first killed him, seemed a small fissure in return for countless deaths.

But the man was still there when Nicoló stood up and  _ just _ as he determined to simply turn away and pretend he had never seen him, the man’s gaze passed over him and caught. Dark eyes widened. With none of the trepidation and hesitation Nicoló had felt, which he did not feel bitter about at all, the man slipped toward Nicoló. He would have said charged, considering all the force of will behind the man’s gaze, but if the man had charged, he would have been stymied moments into the journey. No, he moved forcefully but carefully. Slashing out effortlessly at the Crusaders he passed by, he helped his comrades fighting them, but all the same moved toward Nicoló with purpose, eyes as locked as they could be in a battle. Nicoló felt pinned by that look. He took down a couple of enemy fighters but made no move to run and move away.

Nicoló dug his feet into the sandy dirt and tried to prepare for the force of this man. When Nicoló had faced him the first and what should have been last time, the man had already been injured and brought to the ground. And he had still killed Nicoló. To be fair, many people now had that honour. But it made Nicoló wary to face him uninjured and on even footing. To add to, of course, all the other reasons he was wary to face this man who should have been dead.

The other man was swinging his curved blade before he reached Nicoló, using it to push Nicoló’s sword, which had a longer reach, away from him. A spin and the man and his blade were far too close for comfort and Nicoló’s sword was not in a position to deflect. A searing, startling, white-bright pain cut across his face before he had even registered the flying blade’s goal. He stumbled back, unable to see or even just to process what had been hurt, which caused a unique kind of pained panic, Nicoló found. He almost fell all the way back, almost dropped his sword, but something grabbed his collar and yanked him back to his original position.

A second passed. The pain faded, the skin knitting itself back together. Nicoló opened his eyes to see the dark intense eyes of the man staring at him, wide and shocked.

Nicoló realized why he could not move when they locked on him. That last moment before his death, before his salvation. That last moment of doubt crept in again, stronger now. 

Not enough, though, not yet, to undue all he had been raised and taught his whole life. The rules and order by which he lived, and died. So he brought his sword back to himself and drove it through the other man. He took it out again only a moment later, and the two of them looked down at his chest. The wound bled furiously for a moment and then it slowed and as the man took a hand and smeared the blood, they could see the skin feverishly gathering itself back together.

Nicoló took a step back as the man looked up at him, mouth pulled up into a smug little grin and arms held out by his sides, leaving himself entirely open.

“Why? Why you too?” Nicoló shouted. He had to, to be heard over the sounds of war. This man would not understand him but some inant, animal part of Nicoló  _ needed _ to be heard in this moment. Though his question was not for this man, really.

The man’s eyes widened and he opened his mouth but Nicoló stabbed forward again with his sword. The man grunted in pain, surprise, and slashed at Nicoló, cutting his throat.

When Nicoló woke up again, the man was still standing over him and so their fight continued, separating from the combat of the mortal masses.

The man stabbed through the throat in return. Nicoló face down in the sand and his own sword plunged into his back. His sword in the man’s skull. A carpeting of guts spilled out from both of them. An arm fully cut from his body. A blade to the face. A scramble to the ground. Head slammed into a knee and slammed with a rock. Rock. Rock. Hands wrapped around necks.

“Yusuf.” Nicoló did not think they had killed each other with that last attempt. Instead they had both just passed out simultaneously before coming to, still out of breath, moments later, on the ground. It was the first real pause in their fighting with both of them alive since it began. They were so far from the fighting and the walls of the city, now. He was not sure how they had gotten so distanced. Nicoló looked over at the man, only a little ways away, but they were both still waiting for their immortality to do something about the desperation in their lungs. He ignored the man’s word...words? Nicoló did not know. He supposed he was entitled to a vague incomprehensible statement toward Nicoló after Nicoló’s questioning. The man took a deep breath and sat up. Nicoló did to, even though he was not ready to and did not want to, but he was not about to stay on the ground while the other man got up. He had been killed by him far too many times now to be so foolish. The man saw his alarm and raised his hands, as though in peace, which Nicoló almost scoffed at.

“My name is Yusuf.” Nicoló blinked. Had the short lack of breath finally affected him where all manners of bloody visceral death could not? “We are both...changed like this, we should know one another’s name. No?”

“You--you speak Genovese?” There was no way. The man--Yusuf?--raised an eyebrow as though to say  _ clearly _ .

“I was a merchant before your people waged war. Genovese is a useful language.” Nicoló took a breath. This was...worse now that they could communicate. He tried to get angry again.

“Then you can answer my question. Why do you come back from the dead?”

“I do not know.” The man looked down at his blood covered chest with a look that pleaded for answers in a way Nicoló knew far too intimately. Then he looked up at Nicoló again, the look wiped from his face leaving only sardonic impassivity. “Why do  _ you _ ?” Nicoló swallowed. Then he scrambled up to run to his weapon.

An ocean of cries, of anger, of victory rolled over the two of them and they looked to see the walls of Jerusalem. Breached, finally.

Suddenly Yusuf lunged and seized up Nicoló’s sword. Before Nicoló could understand what was happening, Yusuf brought the sword down on him and then darkness.

Yusuf was gone when he woke up. The two of them had waited for the other to be alive again every death since the first. Nicoló did not know why Yusuf did that, but he did it in the hopes that one of these times he would not see Yusuf’s blood stop pouring out of him and his skin slowly knit itself whole again. Whatever reasoning had kept him by Nicoló’s side previously, though, had clearly released him. Or maybe he had just grown inpatient. The sun had moved quite a bit since Nicoló died. He rubbed his neck. Beheaded. They had not killed each other, and Nicoló had not died by someone else's hand, so brutally and totally. It must take more time to come back.

He stumbled up, grateful no one was around to see, picked up his sword, which had been under his head when he woke up, and took off toward the wall. There were still loud sounds coming from within them, but they seemed less sounds of victory and more sounds of slaughter. But where else was there for him to go?

Some nights, in the future, he would wish he had not. But he knew that would not have made any of it okay.

The Holy City, in the Holy Land, ran red with blood. He had not even passed through the gate before it was clear what was happening. Everywhere, every Crusader he could see was mercilessly cutting down and tormenting people who must be the residents of Jerusalem. There was so much bloodshed and horror Nicoló could not process what he was seeing. Someone, another Crusader, saw him and grabbed him by the shoulder and dragged him into the middle of it all with him.

A boy was pulled toward them by his hair. He was swinging a small knife wildly, no force or training behind it, just a desperate sobbing child trying, trying,  _ trying _ . Jeers and laughter from the Crusaders. And then the boy’s cries sharply ended. Nicoló jerked, intending to...intervene? Stop the tens of men around him? He did not know. It was too late. He felt sick.

Another. Another. 

God was not with him. Not here. Maybe not ever. He was not sure of anything but that there was no way the cries of these people did not negate the presence of anything or anyone holy. There was no light or love here, let alone His. The city was filled only with anguish and sadistic cruelty.

At some point in these mere minutes in the mob, he realized that though most Crusaders had gone deeper into the city, because this group, because Nicoló, was by this gate, they were catching the people but a moment from freedom from the city and the slaughter.

Nicoló fell to his knees when the stranger who had dragged him into this group let go of his shoulder. He stayed there for only a moment, though. A man and woman were circled by the Crusaders, cowering. The man’s eyes caught Nicoló’s for a moment, a split second. His brief look expected no empathy from Nicoló. It was angry and wretched. In that moment the seed of doubt in Nicoló grew into a full fledged tree. It was not the oldest or tallest or most fruitful. But there it stood.

Nicoló saw someone move to strike them. Then the aggressor was on the ground, crying in pain. It was a moment before Nicoló realized he had struck out and attacked him before he could hurt them. Now, the Crusaders turned to him, their cruel enjoyment of the pain of these people morphing into a personal fury at his actions. Nicoló got to his feet and did not allow himself any doubt in his next actions, for all doubt was consuming him.

Once he was acting, cutting down these Crusaders, these  _ warriors of God _ , the hopelessness and the complacency he had felt just before weighed heavier than ever. Guilt over inaction gripped his heart and crushed it. He must have forgotten that he could not be cut down now. Not permanently, at least. That was not an excuse, though, he thought as another Crusader was felled by his blade and he was stabbed again in turn. Mortality would not have justified this. Nothing could justify this. Not land disputes. Not religious disagreement. Not Pope Urban II. Not God.

Nicoló did not know who he was if he did not believe in divine mandate anymore, but he would not think of that now.

The Crusaders were screaming, seeming to have realized that something was wrong with Nicoló. He should have been dead so many times over. He knew that, and now they did too. This worked in his favour, really, as one man should not have been the focus of all the present Crusaders, but one undying man certainly should. He could not look away from his enemies while he fought, but still he glimpsed people slipping past the Crusaders, making a break for it through the gate. If he could just distract them for long enough for some people to survive this day...it would fix nothing but it would at least not be the worst it could be.

The mob by the gate lay at his feet, in their entirety. It must have been more than an hour later. Nicoló stumbled as he recovered from the last Crusader’s death blow against him, toward the gate in hopes he could see tiny silhouettes of some of the people who had slipped away, free outside the walls. 

He did see the people who had slipped away while he fought. A good minute’s run from the wall, laid out in the sand with blood pooling thick around them, dark halos. He could not understand for a moment, these bodies he saw. And then he remembered, was furious he had not remembered till then, the wall, the archers. His people must have taken it by now, picking off the few escaping the city with their lives, running unprotected.

He looked around fervently, trying to find the way up onto the wall. A stairway was barely visible, houses away and Nicoló ran toward it. He saw a Crusader on his way and tensed but the Crusader made no move toward him and he remembered that he was ostensibly on their side. His stomach tried to turn itself inside-out, but Nicoló forced himself to keep going. The stairs had a couple of Crusaders on it and he was let up with only a passing question.

The top of the wall was familiar, bloody and strewn with bodies. This was where he had died at Yusuf’s hands, the first time. Not many Crusaders were camped here, in comparison with the horde he had fought before, and they were spread quite a bit throughout. Looking around he realized that was why no arrows had tried to kill him while he fought that group. There were no Crusaders on the wall that would have had line of sight on him and the fight. If only there were maybe he could have realised they were there before the people who had escaped were shot. He was here now though. He would make a difference now.

“Comrade.” Nicoló would have jumped if he was not already so alert and ready to pounce. Instead he spun neatly to look at the person who had spoken, who was definitely talking to him. “Genovese, yes?” He blinked and looked around briefly and realized that he was surrounded by familiar people in familiar clothes, with familiar weapons. The Genovese bowmen.

“Y--yes,” Nicoló answered hesitantly. The man smiled.

“A very tough fight down there, yes?” Nicoló nodded slowly. “Are you alright? That is a lot of blood, friend.” He looked down. Yes, it was. Most of it was probably even his. He did not know how to handle this concern. It had been easier to forget, as he fought the Crusaders by the gate, that not only did he come with this massacre, but that he was truly a part of it. Knew people who surely must be in the city, razing it now. That these people who had just killed the people Nicoló saved, the innocent families just trying to escape, would see Nicoló unquestioningly as an ally. And that the day before, hours before, he would have been.

Violence was a choice. Not one person he swung against did not have a life and a soul. He had tried to forget the humanity of the Crusaders he fought because that made bloodshed easier, just as he had ignored the humanity of the people in these walls. Could he continue fighting at all without that willful blindness?

Then a call came from a scout on the wall. Another person could be seen running out of the city, fleeing through the gate Nicoló had cleared. The man who had greeted Nicoló turned his attention and drew his bow. Nicoló shoved him hard and he sprawled on the ground.

The man looked up at Nicoló, brows drawn tight and breathing harsh.

“Why did you do that?” Nicoló could see others paying attention to them, but no one acted against him.

“They are not hurting anyone, are they? They are just leaving! Is that not what we wanted? What we came here for?” Nicoló tried to sound convinced and authoritative like he would for sermons or when instructing children. Instead his words came out plaintive, pleading; begging for someone from his home to understand what he now did. The man scoffed and climbed back to his feet.

“We are here to take back Jerusalem and to punish the Fatimids for ever thinking to keep her from us. Every last one of them is the poison we have come to cleanse from the city of Christ’s tomb! You are naive, brother, and would have us lose when we kiss victory’s hand.” He turned from Nicoló dismissively. “There are no innocents here.” And he pulled his bow up again.

Nicoló had only a second to try and reckon with his forced acknowledgement of this man’s humanity when killing him would save someone else, perhaps. It was not enough time. But he cut the Genovese man down all the same. The rest of the wall sprung into chaotic action instantly.

These were long range fighters. Not entirely unskilled in swordplay or other close range techniques, but by no means comparable to unkillable Nicoló. Cries that were beginning to sound familiar sounded as he refused to stay down, but he ignored them. He tried to look each person he killed in the eye and remember they were human like him, if he remained human at least. But that was the most he could indulge his internal moral spiralling.

Nicoló had cut down four people when a voice cried out, not just in surprise but a whole sentence.

“Nicoló! What are you doing?” He looked past the person he was fighting to see a familiar face. Alesso. His brother Leo’s close friend. Leo had seen Nicoló off when he left more because Alesso was leaving on the same ship than any remaining care for Nicoló. Someone behind Nicoló cut his throat while he was distracted, but he did not stay down for long, the cut relatively shallow.

He killed the person he had been facing and then the one who had killed him and then he was face to face with Alesso.

“How have you survived? Why are you doing this, Nicoló?” He was loud and so confused. Alesso was Leo’s age and had always seemed very put together to Nicoló. He had looked up to him more than he had looked up to any of his half-brother’s other companions.

“I do not know through what power I remain standing, but I stand here now because I can not let you kill these people.” Alesso blinked and shook his head as another Crusader pushed him aside and charged Nicoló. Nicoló cut him down too easily. He was overconfident.

“You are a deacon, Nicoló! Almost a  _ priest _ ! You should know better than any of us the importance of our duties here!” Alesso yelled as the other man fell.

“It is not right, Alesso! What have they done to you? To us?” Alesso kneeled to the ground and held the body of the man Nicoló had just killed.

“What have  _ we _ done to you, Nicoló?” He blinked, trying to stay strong in these morals he had cut so many brethren down with. But Nicoló had no foundation now. His bones were made of doubt and his roots were dug up and exposed. He did not know if he had the conviction to fight in the face of such familiarity. Someone he had known from birth. Maybe Alesso was right.

Then an arrow protruded from Alesso’s throat and blood choked its way out of his mouth. Nicoló almost cried out but jerked his head up to look beyond Alesso, where another Crusader stood with a bow. They locked eyes and Nicoló saw that they were crying.

“You are right. But he would never have understood. God forgive us all.” Nicoló did not have time to process that this Crusader agreed with  _ him _ , that finally someone from his home, his background, understood the immense shifting he had felt in the last day, before he was cut down by another Crusader. This time Nicoló did cry out. The man did not get up again.

Nicoló thought of that man and his bravery, his conviction in his morals--so much stronger than Nicoló’s, who it seemed no longer had to fear even death--as he fought the remaining bowmen. Thankfully he knew no others by name, though he recognized many faces. 

Soon he stood alone on the wall, as far as he could see. He took a couple of slow breaths, letting his eyes fall closed. His mind screamed so many different, contradictory things at him that it all faded into a singular numbing background hum. 

Then, above it all, he heard screaming and sounds of fighting, closer. His eyes flew open expecting to see someone running at him on the wall, but there was no one. A moment and he realized it came from below him, in the city.

A group of Arabs were cornered by five Crusaders, having clearly been caught as they tried to escape. A couple of young men and a woman were trying to fight off the Crusaders, but they were civilians. Armed, but likely with weapons they had picked up from fallen warriors that they had no idea how to use. This group would not survive for long. Not long enough for Nicoló to run down and help them.

The bow of the crying man, the bow that had killed Alesso, was Genovese made. As familiar to Nicoló as Alesso. He was not a Genovese bowman, but he was a Genovese man who knew how to use a bow. The Crusaders were close to the wall, the group of civilians must have been trying to skirt along the edge of the city to the gate. Nicoló felled two of the Crusaders before they realized what was happening. Nicoló missed and hit one of the Arabs by mistake, before the Crusaders and Arabs instinctively fell apart at the sky borne attack and made Nicoló’s job easier. When all the Crusaders fell, Nicoló saw the group looking up at him in confusion. He was relieved to see that the man he had hit seemed like he would survive. If he escaped at least.

“Run!” Nicoló yelled before realizing most, if not all, of them probably could not speak his language and then he gestured down the wall, toward where the gate was, trying to communicate his point. The group came into furious movement quickly. They were quiet, despite it all, no doubt how they had even gotten to this point. The injured man was lifted between two older men without improvised weapons. Nicoló was relieved that they would not abandon him even if his presence may hinder them now. He had seen too many injured people abandoned or mercy killed in the past few days.

Nicoló followed them along the wall, picking off Crusaders he saw ahead of them, and in one case a couple of Crusaders at the back of the group, who found and tried to attack them. When they all passed through the gate Nicoló thought he would pass out from sheer relief.

Now he realized he could use his position on the newly cleared wall to help and he began to run up and down it, trying to help as much as he could before his attack on the wall was noticed and more Crusaders came up. 

He helped three groups before he saw him. The largest group he had seen yet was running down an alley between two buildings. They were heavily armed, but again clearly not trained fighters since many of those armed were women. Except for one man, who was obviously a lethal fighter. Nicoló knew that first hand. Yusuf.

Nicoló was so surprised to see him again-- though he should not have been--that it took him a while to remember the bow in his hand and his newest scavenged arrows. He notched an arrow and let it fly, making sure to fire at the Crusaders farthest from the group, of which there were a lot, having been drawn, he assumed, by the sheer size of this group. 

There was a seemingly endless procession of Crusaders attacking the group, but Nicoló fired on them as consistently as they appeared. He focused on those attacking the advancing front. It made sense to do so, he reasoned internally, since it allowed the group to get closer to their escape, helped them run away from the other group of Crusaders, was closer to his position on the wall so he was more accurate, and the fighters protecting that side on the ground were vulnerable, mortal. All of that was true, and did make sense, but Nicoló knew that the largest reason for it was that he did not really want Yusuf to notice his arrows and look up at him. Nicoló was barely staying above the ocean of his guilt and though he had killed an uncountable number of people this day, his repeated killings of Yusuf struck him as an especially large mistake. He did not know why he returned from death, or why Yusuf did, but he had had doubts about the divine mandate of this crusade as they looked into each other’s eyes and died that first time and then whatever power kept bringing him back had given him those visions of Yusuf  _ living _ . He should not have returned to the fight when he came back. He should not have taken it as an affirmation of his divine purpose but rather confirmation of that last moment of doubt, of regret. If he was honest with himself, he should not have left Genova at all. He should have listened to Francesa that night in their mother’s home. But if him being here could save some lives now, he would do his best not to regret that. At least not right now.

Nicoló was beyond relieved that at least one of the people he had unjustly killed would continue living, but that Nicoló had continued to make the exact same mistake and kill him time and time again was shameful. He was given far more chances to learn than any other Crusader, as far as he knew, and it still took him too long.

So, he fired at the group of Crusaders nearer him. At the group he saw coming toward them a couple of buildings away. At a Crusader who broke off and ran to call for backup. He saw some of the fighters from Jerusalem looking up and noting his presence, but they were not Yusuf and no alarm ran through them, so it was fine.

When they reached the gate, Nicoló held his breath. So close, but plenty could still go wrong. Yusuf seemed to have killed the vast majority of the Crusaders that were chasing them, though. It looked like they were maybe in the clear. But as the first of the group crossed the threshold of the gate--not the fighters, who were circling back to help fight off the Crusaders inside the wall, but mostly the sheltered children--another group of Crusaders materialised from the dark space between two sacked buildings. It was not a huge group, not like the group Nicoló had fought by this gate hours earlier, but it was at least ten strong. Enough to seriously cut into the numbers of the group if allowed. At their appearance, Nicoló heard Yusuf shout something he could not understand before he charged headlong into the group of Crusaders before they could reach the others. Without a second thought, Nicoló fired furiously at all the Crusaders around Yusuf, though, thankfully, Yusuf was still too busy to look up at him.

Nicoló could see the now familiar confusion crossed with fear rising among this new group as they tried to keep Yusuf down but he kept coming back. They worked together well, Nicoló could tell even from his distance. Yusuf had not acknowledged him, but he clearly noticed the arrows and kept dancing around the Crusaders so that Nicoló had clear kill shots on the ones Yusuf was not focused on. In record time the whole new group and the few remaining initial Crusaders were wiped out and only Yusuf stood alive in front of the gate, the others in the group having escaped as Yusuf and Nicoló covered their backs. It was only then that Yusuf looked up toward him. Nicoló’s breath caught as they looked directly at each other for the first time not as enemies. Yusuf’s dark eyes still shining despite the blanket of blood that covered Yusuf. But they squinted as he looked up at him, and then his hand raised. To block the sun, Nicoló realised. The evening sun was behind him now, and surely making it impossible for Yusuf to make out any recognisable feature of him. Still Yusuf called softly up at him in a language Nicoló could not understand. He did not know if it was a call of thanks or an offer to join the group, but Nicoló knew he did not deserve whatever it was. Instead he made a large, visible--and silent--gesture from Yusuf to outside the wall. Yusuf cocked his head and hesitated, but when Nicoló gestured again, Yusuf called out something else before running through the gate to follow the group into the wide open space outside.

Nicoló covered their escape, which included fighting people on the wall again since some had finally noticed his uncontested presence on it, till the group and Yusuf were not even dots in the distance. He must have slipped somehow, when he realized none of the Crusaders could stop them now. The relief made his attention lax for just long enough, or his reflexes just slow enough, that he was more thoroughly killed than he had been since his fighting with Yusuf. 

He saw the two women from the vision. It looked like the same setting as before, but night hung thick and the moon shone brightly overhead. They were tucked away in the roots of a tree. Almost impossible to see, if you were not let into their little world like it seemed Nicoló had been. The two women were curled tightly around one another, giving warmth and comfort. For a moment, Nicoló was allowed to feel that warmth and comfort as well and he felt like he could breathe for the first time since he was sent from Genova. This brief respite was there and gone in a second, though, and before he knew it he was being propelled into horrible, horrible reality without even a glimpse of Yusuf.

It had been so quick Nicoló could not be sure how exactly he had died but the tingling in his neck when he woke up again made him think it was another decapitation. However, there was a similar feeling in most of his body though and he wondered if they had tried to keep him dead by cutting him to pieces. It had clearly held off the healing for a long while, but still not permanently. They did not know that, though, since Nicoló found himself once again lying among a pile of bodies at the foot of the wall of Jerusalem, again dumped over the wall when presumed dead. This time the bodies were not fellow Crusaders. This pile was of residents of the city. Old, young, all genders, people in the clothes of combat, and many more not. It was far bigger than the pile of Crusaders had been. And Nicoló woke at the bottom of it all.

Digging himself out of the mountain of bodies felt like it took years. Maybe because he died at least twice in the process. The loss of direction while suffocating under the flesh of innocents and drowning in their blood, the smell and taste of fresh decay smothering him, would star in many nightmares for the rest of his life. 

When he finally escaped, night had long fallen and the sounds of chaos in the city were gone. He could instead hear distant rowdy cheers. Some celebration of victory then. And the unceremoniously dumped bodies with Nicoló pointed to it being a victory for the side that was ostensibly his. He slumped over next to the bodies of these innocent people he had helped slaughter, unable to move or think for a long time when he realized this. Then, still without thought, he got up onto shaky legs and started walking away from Jerusalem.

The first thought Nicoló had as he continued into the darkness, was that he was forever changed. Not because he could no longer die. But because of the cruelty he had witnessed, that he had perpetrated in this home of many. The blood on his hands had changed the core of his being far more than the blood he could now lose without worry. To think anything could outstrip newfound immortality in sheer permanent change wrought on him, was terrifying.

  
  


Yusuf would, in their future, lament that he had not realised the archer on the wall was Nicoló and that they had not escaped Jerusalem together.  _ What a waste to not spend those years together! _ Nicoló knew he mourned any time not spent at Nicoló’s side. Yusuf would always love Nicoló too much to recognize that the time apart was needed. He was  _ also _ a sucker for a good story and two enemies meeting on the wall of Jerusalem and not spending a year apart for the next millennium was a remarkable one. 

But Nicoló could never regret their decade away from each other. Yusuf did not deserve to be subjected to him after Jerusalem. Nicoló had not earned proximity to anyone he had hurt, but especially not Yusuf.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In my original plan, Nicoló was kind of just supposed to leave when Yusuf went back into the city, but then I got there and I was like, wait this don't make sense and then I needed him to try and do some good. I want to be realaly clear about why I did that!  
> 1\. I do not want to like sugar coat Nicky the Crusader to try and pretend he didn't do fucked up shit, because I really want to acknowledge that Nicoló is 100% right about having done bad things and he should feel bad, to the extent that it doesn't hinder him helping now. But I genuinely just would not be able to write about someone who goes along with the events of the Crusades anymore than I have written Nicoló here and make them a love interest for a Muslim. That is just not something I feel morally right doing.  
> 2\. I realized I wanted Nicoló to really have a lot of time to grow and do good and unlearn horrible shit without Yusuf there cause, like Nicoló says in here, Yusuf really didnt deserve that. And character growth that only happens beside the love interest, to make them like a better person for the love interest, has always seemed kind of fucked up to me in general, let alone when you get to the specifics of like this situation.  
> So yeah!

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much for reading!!! <3<3<3  
> I appreciate any comments or kudos immensely! Especially if you think I got something wrong culture or history wise!


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